When Cal was ten days old, I accidentally left her at the pediatrician’s office. Something seemed a little off as I crossed the parking lot, but I felt the weight of my purse in the crook of my arm and I was actively sipping on my Blue Raspberry Slurpee, so, I mean, what thing of importance could I possibly have forgotten?

As I unlocked the car door, I saw the infant carrier base in the back seat. FUCK.

I ran. I’ve only been chased by the police once (that I can immediately recall), and I know this is probably not the right time to brag, but I really impressed myself with the speed and agility I exhibited during my short run through the Las Lomas Apartments community and then again as I sprinted back to the pediatrician’s waiting room. I wish my middle school P.E. teachers could have seen me. Slowpoke my ass, motherfuckers.

Cal was right where I had left her. I had set down the carrier to make another appointment and then walked out sans baby. I kneeled beside the carrier and did an ugly cry, dripping big fat tears of shame all over my kid’s face.

A nurse poked her head through the window and said, “Don’t worry, it happens.”

I forgot to use my proper lady language as I replied, “Man, fuck this shit. I suck at being a mom.”

This is my general reaction every time I make a mistake. Man, fuck this shit. I suck at _______.

This is also my general reaction every time I deem something “too hard.”

I am a serial quitter. I am also a serial restarter. These two tendencies are made worse by what happens in between the restarting and the quitting- I self-sabotage.

Self-sabotage is tricky because it uses that Decepticon bullshit, transforming itself from one form to another. First it looks like procrastination. Then it’s shaped like self-medication or self-injury. It’s fear. Doubt. Isolation. Compulsivity. It’s a spiral of bad choices. I stay up too late. I spend too much time reading about the most efficient yet attractive way to organize my scrapbooking embellishments. I make ridiculous demands of myself. I set unrealistic deadlines.

For more than two years, I’ve been working on a book. I started on a Tuesday. I think I promised my agent I would pull something together by, like, Friday. Monday at the latest. She didn’t LOLOL or anything. I give her props for that.

Earlier this year, I spent two full days perfecting paper airplanes. My planes still fly like shit, but the sharp creases I make using just my thumbnail are baller status. I should have spent that time on my book.

I’ve made a lot of excuses as to why it’s taken so long. Interspersed between the excuses of I don’t know how and Good God, these pages really suck were real-life happenings that delayed the process even longer. I got sad about babies and I also got mad that I still haven’t figured out how to organize my surprisingly large assortment of brads and eyelets.

I grew up going to church. I didn’t even realize attendance wasn’t mandatory until I was almost fifteen years old. This may partly be due to the fact that I’m a slow learner, but I’d also like to think it’s because I was an obedient child. When my mother beckoned me from the garage door to get in the damn car right now don’t make me come back into the house to find you stop putting more Sun-In in your hair it’s church not the beach youdummy, I followed her orders without hassle. Being such a pleasure to parent is probably the reason I gave birth to a good kid myself. I hear God doesn’t play favorites, but just look at how that all worked out. Suspicious, amirite?

After I became an unwed pregnant teenager, I stopped attending regularly because I feared judgment. Not from God, but from the other churchgoers. It wasn’t a sure thing that my situation was going to light up the gossip circuit, but people were still talking about how a certain family had moved from a five-bedroom home into a duplex. I was pretty sure an 18-year-old’s surprise pregnancy was almost as interesting as a real estate step-down. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being bigheaded.

Not going to church didn’t mean that I no longer believed in God. I still hollered at Him from time to time when I felt especially broken. My prayers became casual conversations. Not like a real-time chat where I would share an issue and He would respond immediately. It was more like a text exchange where I sent off a thought, knowing He would get back to me eventually. Sometimes, it would take weeks or months, but I have other friends who lag like that. I’ve learned to accept them for who they are.

Because I missed the sense of community, I started going to a different church when Cal was a toddler. The new place seemed legit, and I still know people from my brief stint there who I am proud to call my friends.

I stopped attending after the pastor’s wife pulled me aside to express her concern that bringing Cal to church might influence the youth group kids into believing that our church condoned teen parenthood. Just like I have a personal policy about not hitting other people’s kids, I also won’t hit a pastor’s wife. Or a pastor. We all need to set boundaries for ourselves and those are mine. (It may seem like I go around hitting people, but I want you to know that I haven’t gotten into a physical altercation in YEARS. I also don’t hit animals or old people.)

I still believe in God. I’ve never really talked about being religious before, and I was scared to do it today, but just because I don’t talk about something doesn’t make it less true.

I also still believe that not all religious people are narrow-minded or judgmental or that being a pillar of a church community exempts a person from making very human mistakes with their words and actions. I won’t blame that pastor’s wife as the reason I haven’t made an effort to attend church regularly for the past twelve years. It was a choice I made.

For years, I waved to Harv and Cal as they left for Sunday service. In the past few months, I’ve started joining them occasionally. I’m always nervous when I walk through the heavy wooden doors. The sheer amount of swearing I do each week makes me think I’m going to burst into flames. That’s probably not how God works, but I don’t put anything past that guy. Even if He is my homeboy.